Thursday, January 31, 2013

Back in 1978, in an article entitled “Historical reports
in Australia,” I included a reference to a possible UFO sighting during the
1861 Burke and Wills expedition, around June 23rd. Within days both Burke and Wills would be
dead, victims of an expedition gone wrong and paying the ultimate price in the
harsh conditions of the Australian outback at Coopers Creek. 2011 was the 150th
anniversary of the epic and tragic Burke and Wills expedition.

While death was only days away William John Wills recorded in his journal dated
Tuesday June 23, a strange apparition witnessed by John King, who would
ultimately be the sole survivor of the cross-country expedition party. King at 22, a “veteran” (1857-1859) of the
Indian Mutiny, brought to the expedition his expertise with camels. Health problems would seem to have made him
an unlikely choice, but he soon distinguished himself as “a versatile and
capable member of the party…. Always calm and reserved, with a strong sense of
duty, King melted into the background and got on with his job. His reward was a place in the forward party.”
(pgs. 183 – 184, “The Dig Tree”, Sarah Murgatroyd, 2002)

(left) John King - witness to an 1861 "UFO
vision" during the final days of the tragic Burke and Wills expedition.
Source: From the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria, via
Sarah Murgatroyd, "The Digg Tree", 2002, pg. 180. (Right) William John Wills, the
expedition astronomer.Source:
From William Strutt, Dixson Library, State Library of NSW, via Sarah
Murgatroyd, "The Digg Tree", 2002, pg. 77.

Wills wrote:

“Near daybreak King reported seeing a moon in the east
with a haze of light stretching up from it to be quite as large as the moon and
not dim at the edges. I am so weak that any attempt to get a sight of it was
out of the question; but I think it must have been Venus in the Zodiacal light
that he saw, with a corona around her.”

Maybe Wills was right. After all he was the surveyor and
astronomical observer for the ill-fated expedition. Between 1858 and 1860 Wills
had worked as an assistant at Melbourne's Flagstaff observatory. His written instructions included, “All
astronomical phenomena of particular interest should be observed, if the means
at the disposal of the astronomer do admit of such observation …. Observations
on the Zodiacal Light may be made with a great facility and advantage for
science…. A good look out should be kept for meteors.” (pg. 306, “Burke
& Wills – The Scientific Legacy of the Victorian Exploring Expedition,”
edited by E.B. Joyce & D.A. McCann, 2011)

In his 1976 Boyer lecture historian Manning Clark stated:

"The story of Burke and Wills could be told to
illustrate many things about life. Like all great stories it had everything....
To feel the full force of that tragedy one has to stand on the banks of
Cooper’s Creek at the spot where Wills died. Right to the very end Wills had
believed, like Mr Micawber, that something might turn up.... The most difficult
thing of all for a historian is to learn how to tell his story so that
something is added to the facts, something about the mystery at the heart of
things."

Well, something may indeed have turned up. Astronomy software reconstructing
the early morning sky for the period in question suggests that Venus was below
the sunrise horizon, and the moon was in the west. So if these tentative
reconstructions are correct we have a mystery on our hands. I suspect it was
something prosaic that the lone expedition survivor - John King - saw that
morning, more than 150 years ago. Perhaps given the dire and tragic
circumstances closing in on the 3 men, precision in observations may have
understandably started to lapse. Perhaps King had a hallucination due to the severe
condition he was in?

The excellent 150th anniversary book “Burke &
Wills – The Scientific Legacy of the Victorian Exploring Expedition,” edited by
E.B. Joyce & D.A. McCann, highlights William John Wills “as scientist”, as
an excellent observer even to his dying days. I wonder if Wills had had the
strength to look and verify King’s observations whether the mystery would have
continued.

What did John King see? - Hallucination, Venus, the moon, a UFO, or something
else?

I first read John Wills account of King’s “vision” back in
1975 when I read Alan Moorehead’s account of the expedition, “Cooper’s
Creek.”

I have been interested in historical UFO events in Australia
and the near region ever since I began my interest in UFOs. My initial
conclusion back in 1978 was, “Australia like many other counties has a rich
crop of UFO sightings long before the modern popularisation of the
mystery. The UFO phenomenon seems to be
as old as man himself.” In my original account I used “UFO phenomena”
to equate with the likelihood that many things come together that are
collectively called the UFO phenomenon, but I prefer to have the latter linking
directly to the “core” unexplained and alien phenomenon.

The only pre-1947 UFO event supported by a photograph I had
come across was a sighting I briefly described in my 1996 book “The OZ Files
– the Australian UFO Story.” The account of it I have been able to find was
the story in the U.F.O.I.C. Newsletter No. 21, December, 1968:

Sighting
and UFO photo back from 1935 Only now, a report and a negative
of a UFO photographed in 1935 have been received and investigated by UFOIC. As
the case was, the person concerned wondered at the time what the object might
have been but has only recently become aware of the extraordinary nature of his
experience and the significance of the photograph which he took. That year, Mr.
Patrick A.M. Terry of Mosman, Sydney, was stationed with the military at
Newcastle and on the night of 10th October he went fishing to
Nobby’s Head. The sky was overcast and there was no moon. At about 10 p.m.,
while sitting on the rocks, he noticed a flash of light in the sky out over the
sea. Then a steady light appeared. It was brighter than a full moon and was
hovering about a mile away and possibly 10,000 feet high. It was yellow –
bright on the lower part gradually diminishing through three dark bands into
grey. The whole complex appeared actually as a tremendously large
mush-room-shaped object, consisting of three floors, smaller supporting the
larger one, and the light from the bottom floor illuminating all three upper
sections. The object then suddenly descended to a height of about 5,000 feet
and remained stationary for a few seconds. It then moved quickly back to its
original position. At that time Mr. Terry’s curiosity and surprise were fully
aroused and while he had a Kodak Brownie box camera with him, he took a
snapshot at 1/25th sec. exposure. After about 10 minutes of
hovering, the object began revolving with increased speed and moved away,
disappearing towards the north and out of sight in seconds. The photos later
showed a definite circular object with details seen well at enlargement. (The
photo will be published in the next Review).

The
report refers at one point to “photos” but only one seems to have been taken.
The next Review – the Australian UFO Review (UFOIC edition), No. 10 -
did not appear until December, 1969. There was no account or photo of the 1935
incident in the issue. The magazine did report on the accidental death of
UFOIC’s long time energetic president Dr. Miran Lindtner. Not reported
was a story I had heard a few times from various sources that a UFOIC committee
member had allegedly been bombarding Dr. Lindtner’s widow about retrieving some
trivial items. The alleged insensitivity of the UFOIC member apparently led to
the widow disposing of some UFOIC items in a backyard bonfire. If this story
had any validity it may be a depressing explanation for the non-appearance of
the 1935 photo in the UFOIC Review magazine. Another piece of UFOIC folklore
also refers to its sighting officer being a bit of a “bower bird” when it came
to unique and significant UFO related items. In other words one didn’t tend to
leave items of this nature for his attention as they would disappear into his
alleged “private collection.” When I joined the UFOIC group committee in 1975 I
came across evidence of this man’s “bower bird” activities (lining his “private
UFO nest” with “bright” (important) items as a bower bird does in nature).
Unfortunately I was not then aware of the 1935 UFO photo story. When I did find
out of it a number of years later I made attempts to locate the photographer
and any evidence for it, unfortunately without success.

If
anyone has any knowledge of the 1935 incident or Mr. Terry I would be pleased
to hear of it.

There
have been a number of other early Australian photos that show items that look
like UFOs, but these do not have any related UFO story. For example the
Australian magazine Ufologist reproduced one taken of Brisbane Hospital
in the late 1800s, courtesy of Gordon Bagnall, in their Vol.9 No.4, 2005
issue. It shows a black disk shaped “object.” It is not clear if the people in
photo are noticing anything unusual. The dark item may even be a photo defect
or from some other prosaic source. The lack of any UFO related sighting
narrative makes the photo interesting but not of any strong probative value.

My
friend Paul Cropper, who shares my passion for searching out old records
for unusual Fortean type material, drew my attention during 2011 to another
early “UFO” photo which has an accompanying contemporary narrative. Our
decades’ long searching for this sort of material has more recently been
greatly assisted by the increasing digitisation of old newspaper archives
available on-line. Paul’s discovery was of an interesting 1931 Queensland
newspaper report of a “strange light” which also carried a photo. Now it could
be of a meteoric sourced “trail” of light or the result of the luminous trail
its passage left behind. The details supplied are not sufficient to have
certainty with regard to an explanation, so we will give it a tentative label
of “UFO.” I will note that 4 months earlier Francis Chichester had his curious
airborne encounter off the Australian coast over the Tasman Sea – “the dull
grey-white shape of an airship … like an oblong pearl,” as described in his
1933 book “Seaplane Solo” (also published as “Alone Over the Tasman
Sea”).

From
the Rockhampton newspaper the Morning Bulletin of Wednesday 21 October
1931, various independent observers reported a curious sky phenomenon in the Winton
district. One described “a strange trail of light, seen in the western
sky between 6.30 and 7 pm, on Saturday evening, October 17th. When
first seen, this trail of light was shaped like a capital “T” or a figure “7,”
then it changed into a long wavy line like a great serpent. Much brighter and
bigger at the lower end. It stayed in the sky about twenty minutes and then
suddenly disappeared.” The correspondent sent two photos with time
exposures of one minute, taken at 6.45 pm. Only one photo was carried in the
paper (reproduced here).

Another
observer, a stockman, reported the “dazzling affair. The sun was down a good
time and the moon’s light not very bright. The time must have been a little
past 7 o’clock. The affair resembled a thick snake, head downwards, all
brilliantly white, while several clouds nearby were quite black. In fact, there
was not another white cloud in the sky.”

The
stockman further described, “It held its shape for quite a while. Then the
tail changed and it started to pale, turning quite pink as it did so. The head
stayed strong and pink to the last. I had no watch, but before it paled I had
ridden a mile watching it all the time. I have an idea that it came on
suddenly, as I shut a gate several minutes before and saw nothing.
Superstitious people will be wondering what it fortells. I’m trying to believe
our long delayed rain is close at hand.”

The
paper’s Winton correspondent reported that many residents saw the phenomenon as
dusk was approaching. The correspondent wrote, “It took the form, when first
observed, of a pencil of white steam-like substance. It was located in the sky,
south of Winton, at an altitude of about halfway between the horizon and the
zenith, close to the pointers of the Southern Cross.”

“This
mysterious white streak stood almost vertical and unravelled slowly downwards,
at the same time growing thicker, until it was about the length (to the eye) of
the distance of the Southern Cross pointers.

“After
about ten minutes it began to bend as if blown by an air current, and gradually
lengthened, the tail growing fainter and assuming the shape of a reversed mark
of interrogation. The lower end was now in the shape of an arrow head and
drifted lower and in a westerly direction, until, as darkness came on, it faded
from view.”

The
newspaper account ends with a possible source of the aerial phenomenon: “An
enormous meteor or shooting star, which fell in a north-westerly direction, was
observed in the Winton district. It reached the dimensions of a huge electric
light, and had a brilliant red sword-like tail.”

Several Australian
studies and reports have focused on the earlier historical phase of sightings,
i.e. reports that preceded the beginnings of the modern era of UFO sightings
which began in late June 1947 with the famous Kenneth Arnold sighting in the
USA.

In 1965
Australia’s first flying saucer book appeared – “Flying Saucers over
Australia” by James Holledge. It
also lists the 4 historical sightings described by UFOIC’s Jack Kunst and Ken
Hatton. Holledge reports “From their
own research, Australian ufologists believe that the first published report of
an unidentified flying object in this country occurred as far back as October,
1874, at Beechworth in Victoria.” Around 1975 I located newspaper
referencesrelated this event.During October, 1874, a
“celestial display” of considerable magnitude was observed over a wide
area. The Sydney Morning Herald of
October 8 and 9, 1874, documents the story.
The event occurred on October 4 at about 6 p.m., and involved “a
meteor of great size, (which) suddenly flashed in the western heavens
immediately over where the sun had set, and bursting like a rocket into
numerous brilliant spangles, left behind it a straight silvery line resembling
a streak of lightning. This line shortly
afterwards, seemed to assume a sinuous or spiral shape, the folds of which
gradually contracted or became as it were compressed till they presented
somewhat of a zig-zag appearance, the angles being particularly bright and
silvery.” The phenomenon lasted for
about 20 minutes over Victoria. One
witness suggested it might be “Venus transmitting a telegram to the sun (about)
her approaching transit. Whatever it was
certainly a most beautiful as well as a most extraordinary occurrence.” The event was probably of a celestial
nature – a striking meteor with a pronounced and enduring tail, seen over a
widespread area, such as Beechworth, Victoria, and Goulburn, Gosford and Wagga
in NSW.

In 1969
Michael Hervey mentions a few further historical cases in his book “UFOs
over the Southern Hemisphere.”
Hervey made an undated reference the 1879 “remarkable meteor” at
Freemantle, W.A. While writing the book
Hervey made some public requests for reports.
Amongst the numerous letters he received were a number of historical
cases, which were listed as “First Hand Reports”. These included 1931 - Baradine, NSW; during
the war years – Sale, Victoria; 1936 – Willow Bark, Queensland; and 1934 Ashley
Clinton, New Zealand.

“Items
from the Australian flap, 1909-1910” by Paul Norman, FSR (Flying Saucer Review), Vol.22,
No.6, 1976. This was a one page piece which referred to the 1910 account of the
crew of the “Wookata” near Althorp Island near Cape Spencer, South Australia. The
account recovered from an old newspaper lacked the date, but it was widely
reported in Australian newspapers on or about August 3 or 4, 1910. Norman also included a brief mention of some
of the well known New Zealand 1909 “airship” reports, but with no reference to
the 1909 Australian reports.

My “Historical
reports in Australia” article was reprinted a number of times including in
the ACUFOS (Australian Centre for UFO Studies) Journal, Vol.2. No. 1 to 4,
1981, and in “UFOs over Australia” edited by Mark Moravec & John
Prytz (1985).

In 1981 I
circulated a “Preliminary listing of Australian Historical UFO Events -
Prehistory to 1949” to try to ignite interest in historical UFO cases. This
sighting material was largely put together from diverse sources by Paul Cropper
and me. I choose the end year of 1949
because it seemed based on research at the time that 1950 marked the
significant beginnings of the Australian UFO experience. I listed the year, location and a few words
about over 110 events, plus 56 New Zealand “airship” events from 1909, as well
a few more Fortean or apparitional phenomena.

I had
thought with this extensive historical UFO sightings listing considerable
interest would have been ignited.
Instead apart from some researchers passing on a small amount of
material, generally speaking interest was non existent. Rather than put out a detailed document at
that point I chose instead to concentrate on detailed case studies of select
compelling cases. From this approach emerged the 1868 Birmingham “UFO vision”
and 1927 Fernvale documents:

“A UFO
Vision? The mystery of ‘A machine to go through the air’, 1873, Parramatta,
NSW, Australia”, by
Bill Chalker, UFORAN, Vol.3, No.1, Jan./Feb.1982. I also wrote a separate
article on the 1868 affair for Fortean Times,“Encounter in the Outback”,
September, 2002.

“The
Terror Down Under”,
by Bill Chalker, Fate, September, 1988 (re 1927 Fernvale, NSW, UFO milieu). A
much more detailed account was to appear in the Fortean Times special issue
devoted to the Mothman, but for whatever reason (possibly length) it did not
appear despite being listed in 2 issues as coming in the next issue. Further details passed onto me by Cecil
McGann (the primary witness of the 1927 events) before he passed away, were incorporated
into an extended document.

Further
material on historical cases emerged in a fragmentary way, including:

Robin
Northover wrote a short piece for Australiasian Post magazine in 1982, entitled
“Seeing things way back.” It
described 4 events – 1873 – a sea event, 1893 – the NSW “paralysis” encounter,
the Minderoo Station “airship” event erroneously dated as 1909 (an error I
continued with my account of the event in my book “The OZ Files – the
Australian UFO Story”, until it was corrected to 1910 in Brett Holman’s
excellent on-line series “Scareships over Australia” at
http://airminded.org)

The
increasing availability of on-line digital newspaper archives and related web
sites has created a marked increase in the number of researchers taking an
interest in uncovering accounts of possible historical UFO events. The excellent Magonia Exchange List has been
a striking manifestation of this, but its focus on encouraging somewhat ad hoc
almost daily declarations of 0n-line “discoveries” has been difficult for me to
regularly participate in. Instead I sent
them some of my document collations, and occasional “discoveries” when time and
resources permitted. The irony is that
many of the online discoveries made more recently have already been found
through “old-fashioned” direct methods years ago. Never-the-less the increasing coverage of
on-line digital newspaper archives is a definite asset to historical UFO
researchers.

For me the
1868 Birmingham “UFO vision” and the 1927 Fernvale affair were the 2 standout
historical Australian reports. They allowed very detailed research and
investigations. Of course many of the
historical reports may be about natural or prosaic phenomena (these have a
value all of their own), but many provocatively suggest indications of a much
earlier UFO history than the watershed year of 1947.

The
approximate 110 plus reports (not including the 1909 New Zealand “airship”
reports) I listed in 1981 has been significantly expanded with my own further
research over the past 3 decades, ably assisted by Paul Cropper. We hope to publish a substantial document
describing the extraordinary legacy of historical UFO reports in Australia and
the near region.

Any further
reports are most welcome: please sent details to P.O. Box 42, West
Pennant Hills, NSW, 2125.

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About Me

Coordinator of the Sydney based UFO Investigation Centre (UFOIC) & the Anomaly Physical Evidence Group (APEG). Information about sightings and research are most welcome.
Author of "The OZ Files - the Australian UFO Story" (1996), "Hair of the Alien - DNA and other forensic evidence of alien abduction" (2005), and "UFO History Keys - Examining the UFO controversy from a historical perspective" (2011). Enquiries via billozfiles@tpg.com.au or P.O. Box 42, West Pennant Hills, NSW, 2125, AUSTRALIA. In "HAIR of the ALIEN" (order via www.amazon.com) my primary focus is promoting a forensic scientific approach to examining the alien abduction controversy, concentrating on the DNA approach where compelling biological evidence is available.